


Secret

by ladysisyphus



Series: Wolves [15]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:12:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1945893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a joke, an attempt to lighten the mood after ten tense days of antibiotics and painkillers and bloody bandages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret

It was a joke, an attempt to lighten the mood after ten tense days of antibiotics and painkillers and bloody bandages. But it was also a risk, and Numbers knew exactly how much of one he was taking when he raised his hands anyway and signed: Going out?

Wrench gave him an upraised middle finger, but he was smiling, that dopey twilight grin in the haze that kept his mind on things other than the hole in his shoulder and how his body was busy patching over it. Not in the mood, he signed, keeping his left side relatively still. A thought seemed to startle him into a sleepy little laugh: Maybe later. With a little grunt, he leaned forward, and Numbers got an arm behind him to help him sit up straighter. 

The only light in the room came from CNN, which had been playing nonstop for the past couple days with closed captions flickering at the bottom. Numbers hated the way they appeared between ten and thirty seconds behind whatever was being said, to say how _nobody_ in that captioning room seemed to be able to spell 'Milošević' (or, at times, 'Serbia', or even 'elections'), but Wrench got crabby if they were off. Numbers had decided on a good compromise, whereby the captions went on _and_ the volume went off. Now they could both be deaf.

Maybe, Numbers echoed once Wrench was settled. But you look good! Guys will be _all_ over you, he added, signing in the certainly too-literal way he'd become used to when wanting to render idioms; Wrench had only ever had trouble with the more bizarre ones. Numbers brushed a lock of hair back from Wrench's forehead and added: They love that S-H-O-T-U-P-L-O-O-K.

I know, Wrench signed, which was at once adorable and a touch disquieting. But I stopped, remember? Stop, finish.

I remember, Numbers told him, sitting back on the bed that had become theirs. The room had two, of course, but the first night they'd been there, Numbers had woken up after only an hour's doze, sweating and panicked and just _certain_ that Wrench had needed him and been unable to rouse him. It hadn't been true, of course -- Wrench had been solidly in that worrying grey area between asleep and unconscious -- but Numbers had been unable to sleep again without being in arm's reach. He signed: They still look at you. I don't see them, but I know they do.

Wrench rolled his eyes. _Everyone_ looks at me. I'm tall.

As correct of a statement as that was on its face, Numbers wasn't about to argue its incomplete logic. Terrifying too, he added, giving Wrench a condescending little pat on the head after.

That got him flipped off, this time from both hands. They look at _us_ , Wrench signed, gesturing between the two of them. When they see us sign. He made some other loose motion with his hands that Numbers didn't get, but even when Numbers showed no reaction or comprehension, Wrench didn't repeat it. Must not have been important.

They can't _see_ you're deaf when you're alone, Numbers pointed out -- and then a thought struck him, one wholly inappropriate even for friendly conversation, especially given how weird Wrench sometimes was about it. Still, it seemed he'd never get a better chance than this: How do people know you're deaf? Wrench frowned at that, as though certain he'd missed something, so Numbers tried specifying: When you went out, before, did you _tell_ people you're deaf?

Wrench shook his head with such matter-of-fact certainty that Numbers was shocked to realize how much he'd expected the answer to be 'yes'. Numbers asked: Did they guess?

No, signed Wrench, this time letting his hand close off the question: They didn't know. He took one look at Numbers' face and laughed softly. Okay, he signed, _maybe_ some guessed. Everyone else maybe thought I was-- Wrench pointed a middle finger at his upraised left palm, giving it a brusque brush it from heel to fingertip, and when Numbers shook his head slightly, Wrench lifted his hand and spelled, right up in Numbers' personal space, R-U-D-E.

Numbers laughed. "Well, they weren't wrong," he said, but instead of signing that, he asked: Why? ... _How_?

A little shadow fell across Wrench's face: It gets weird if they know. When Numbers' questioning frown wasn't satisfied by that answer, Wrench sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. Do you see how people look at us when we talk? he asked, and Numbers nodded; he'd been in situations before where being the only Jewish guy in the place had gotten him some funny looks, but he'd never quite had so many people out-and-out _stare_ at him in public as he had since he'd started learning how to _really_ speak with his hands. Wrench continued: That's how _everyone_ looks at me. When they know. Don't know what to say, or start speaking V-E-R-Y-S-L-O-W-L-Y -- being drugged had already brought Wrench's fingerspelling rate down to a more manageable pace, but there he let each letter have a full second's irritated weight -- or they want to ask questions about being deaf. Not what I want.

What he wanted instead wasn't a mystery. Nobody talks? asked Numbers.

Maybe _they_ talk. I don't.

The idea of being able to pick up someone in a bar without having to engage in _any_ conversation first both baffled and somewhat troubled Numbers. But then again, most of his charm came from talking; he couldn't get by on the same raw male handsomeness Wrench possessed. Do you have a S-E-C-R-E-T-C-O-D-E? A gay C-O-D-E? Like sign language?

That at least brought a laugh out of Wrench, even if it was accompanied by an eyeroll. Not C-O-D-E, he signed with a sigh. You know where to look. _How_ to look. Wrench paused for a moment, then added: I read a book about gay C-O-D-E-- His next series of signs were lost on Numbers, but he got that Wrench was indicating the reading happened at some past time, when he was young -- too young to drink, in fact, as he signed about a bar, then looking, then getting kicked out. 

If anything, _that_ was what had made conversation with Wrench difficult these past few weeks -- not that his left side was more or less out of commission, but that sometimes his sentences didn't seem to fit together right. In the few grammar lessons they'd had before, Wrench had indicated more than once that sign language not only didn't need all the words English did, but often didn't need them in even remotely the same order. Numbers had always nodded and assumed he'd already seen that in action, but no, as with signing speed, he'd really had no idea how much Wrench had been dumbing things down for his benefit until that self-limitation was gone.

How old were you then? asked Numbers.

Wrench lifted his hand toward a number that looked like it might have been 'sixteen', then stopped and frowned. He traced the outline of a bulbous snout, a sign Numbers had initially read as some bizarre antisemitic insult, before being told that, no, he had just been plain accused of being nosy.

What? Numbers raised his hands innocently. We're just talking. Like friends.

Wrench's mouth crinkled into a petulant pout. Lucky for him that his occasional fits of near-adolescent pique were usually cuter than not, or Numbers would have smothered him in his sleep a dozen times over the past month. I-N-T-E-R-R-O-G-A-T-I-N-G.

How can I I-N-T-E-R-R-O-G-A-T-E you? Numbers pointed over to the far side of the room: Our guns are over there. That wasn't counting the pistol and assorted knives within arm's reach, but Numbers didn't feel that fact helped his argument.

Despite how all his painkillers had been oral, Wrench fake-jabbed a fist against the inside of his left elbow, silently accusing Numbers of having drugged him.

Now it was Numbers' turn to roll his eyes: We are talking like friends do; this is how friends talk. The absolute accuracy of that latter statement was debatable, but that was neither here nor there. The people on the television kept talking, their mouths making movements he didn't understand how anyone could render into sense. He'd looked long and hard, but he'd never seen enough difference to matter. Numbers opened his arms wide, exposing his unarmored chest, before telling Wrench: Your turn. You ask.

Wrench stared at him for a moment, his eyes foggy but still comprehending. At last, he let his gaze drop and shook his head: I don't know anything to ask. You say everything already.

Numbers shook his head: No, I say a lot of nothing, and people _think_ I say everything. A little shadow crossed over Wrench's brow, and Numbers shook his hand, clearing the air: Sorry. We'll be quiet now. You need your rest.

It was hard to tell, in the dark and the heat and the fickle light from the silent television, but Wrench's eyes seemed to prickle with redness at the edges before he let his gaze fall away. Sorry, he signed in return, bringing his fist to the middle of his chest. Sorry I'm a lousy friend.

Numbers poked him in his good sholder until he turned back, and when Wrench caught his eye again, Numbers shook his head emphatically: No. Good friend. _Best_ friend. Quiet friend, that's okay. Only friend, that's okay too. Still best.

Wrench rubbed a hand back and forth across his mouth, and it took Numbers a moment before he realized it wasn't a sign, it was a nervous gesture. He let it go uncommented-upon, and at last Wrench sighed and brought his hands back up to sign, still not quite meeting Numbers' eyes: I never tell anyone about that. About bars. Sex. I try to think of how, and I know you'd think it's awful.

Awful? Numbers repeated for confirmation, two-handed where Wrench had made do with one, pinching both his thumbs and middle fingers together over his shoulders, then flicking his hands forward as though throwing something disgusting away. You kill people. I know that about you. How much more awful can it be?

A quiet laugh passed Wrench's lips. Different awful.

_I_ kill people, Numbers pointed out, not even prying for information anymore so much as too bothered by the statement to let it pass uncorrected. I'm awful. We're the same awful.

Wrench put together a series of signs that Numbers almost couldn't make parse into language at first, not because he didn't know them individually, but because he didn't believe Wrench, _Wrench_ , would ever start a sentence with 'the first time I had sex'. Wrench waited after that, and when Numbers gave a nod, he continued: The first time I had sex I got in a fight. I won. People I worked with then took me to a bar. I was too young, but nobody stopped me. I had a bad-- Numbers pointed to his nose, then trickled his fingers down in front of his chest like liquid. Oh, nosebleed.

Why did you get into a fight? asked Numbers.

I forget, signed Wrench. Doesn't matter. He hit me, and then I-- All but one-handed and part of a larger story now, Wrench's hands sped up and hopped from word to word until Numbers couldn't parse complete sentences but still got the larger picture: The other guy had broken Wrench's nose, and Wrench had proceeded to beat the man until the man had yelled stop -- which Wrench, of course, hadn't been able to hear, so his co-workers had needed to get in there and physically pull Wrench off thesurrendering guy. They didn't seem like they'd been _friends_ , necessarily, but they'd seemed to have taken pity on the big deaf kid, and they certainly hadn't wanted him killing anyone in their regular bar.

The nosebleed, Wrench continued, started and stopped all night. On my shirt. And a man ... a stranger, not with us. I had to take off my shirt. It was a mess, my face was a mess. Everything smelled like blood. I needed to find the bathroom and he came -- he said something, before we went, and I thought maybe he said he wanted to help me clean up. No one acted weird or said stop. I didn't know the bar, so he took me and showed me to the bathroom.

Wrench only paused for a moment before going on: He took me in. Tiny. Too small for two people. He pushed me against the wall and-- Instead of the somewhat less obscene gesture Numbers had learned at the bar only weeks before, Wrench put his fist to his mouth and mimed cocksucking, complete with using his tongue to make a bulge in the far side of his cheek.

And this was the moment Numbers knew he had to play it cool -- and he _was_ cool, it was fine, everything was fine, they were just friends talking about things friends talked about. He thought for a moment about Meg, about how he hadn't called her, about how it hadn't even _occurred_ to him to call her, about how she was probably pissed and rightfully so. No wonder women always broke up with _him_. No wonder everything he did was a disaster. His heart caught in his throat, and the only response he had was to say aloud, "Damn."

He left, explained Wrench, his cheeks a little ruddier than usual, his face fixed so he didn't quite have to look Numbers in the eye. I washed my face and shirt alone. I came outside. He wasn't in the bar. I went back to the table. People bought me beer. After that, I couldn't follow what anyone was saying.

"I guess you really don't need to talk," said Numbers, signing along as best he could.

Wrench shrugged: No, not if you look a certain way. Teenager with no shirt. Looks good. I thought-- Wrench paused, shaking his head a little before continuing: I thought there was a C-O-D-E. I tried to look before. Maybe C-L-U-B-S. But ... no. When someone looks at you, you smile. That's all. Straight men don't smile when someone looks at them.

Well, that was something he hadn't known about himself. Numbers chewed at his lower lip for a moment before asking: What do you do in the morning? Wrench frowned and Numbers clarified: If they don't know you're deaf.

No morning, Wrench signed. When I'm done, I go home.

What if you want to see him again?

Wrench shook his head: Men who want sex like that don't want to see you again. They just want -- Wrench's hands searched for a minute before concluding -- what they want.

This topic of conversation was studded with land mines, and Numbers was afraid of landing on even one of them, but he was afraid even more of the growing sensation that Wrench really _wanted_ to talk about this, and once the excuse of being drugged was gone, he never would again. What do _you_ want? he asked, letting that be as general or specific as Wrench wanted it.

Wrench was still for a moment, for so long that Numbers was afraid he had indeed just mis-stepped and seen it all blow up in his face. But then Wrench shrugged and signed, almost word by word: I want to be what someone wants.

No wonder he'd been so tense and touchy since their blowup weeks ago. Numbers hadn't even thought about what going out and getting laid might _mean_ to Wrench; he'd written it off as just another thing, one thing of many young people did for fun, something _he'd_ done for fun from time to time, if not quite in the same way. But Numbers had only ever worried about being _charming_. He'd never pondered the mechanics of being _wanted_ before -- that was what women did, after all, and it was his job to what what they had to be wanted. The thought of Wrench putting himself in a similar relative position made his stomach knot in ways he didn't understand.

I just wanted you to be safe, Numbers signed at last, and it was almost all true.

You're right, Wrench admitted. Not safe at home. Not enough people. On the road, away, better.

Numbers took a deep breath: It's okay to me if you go. Wrench pointed to his still-healing shoulder, and Numbers shook his head: Okay, not now. But if you go in the future. It's okay. I won't say anything. Not my business.

Me going out? signed Wrench, and there was something almost sad about the way he asked it, though Numbers was willing to chalk that up to the drugs. Alone, for sex, no yelling?

"I don't want you to," Numbers said, at the same time that he signed, sure, no yelling, I understand. "It's stupid and it's reckless and you deserve better," he said, signing, you're an adult, you're smart, you make your own choices.

Thanks, Wrench signed, shutting his eyes and fading back under a wave of pain and exhaustion, and if Numbers hadn't understood before the limits of lip-reading, oh, he knew them now.


End file.
